


Unlook'd for Joy

by Maidenjedi



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/F, Gen, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-03
Updated: 2016-07-03
Packaged: 2018-07-19 19:09:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7373911
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Maidenjedi/pseuds/Maidenjedi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Georgiana Darcy went for a walk at Pemberley, and met a Queen along the way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Unlook'd for Joy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [anabel](https://archiveofourown.org/users/anabel/gifts).



She had not gone far; she should have been able to turn around and see the house. 

The sounds were different.  She had heard birds and curious small animals rustling in the underbrush.  The flora and fauna were different; she had never seen flowers quite that color in the woods around Pemberley, nor trees so robust, so _life-like_.

While she marveled that there should be an inch of the grounds so unfamiliar to her, an area where she was not entirely sure of her next step, she failed to actually turn around, and look for the house.

It was, of course, nowhere to be found.

-

“Who are you?” said the young woman before her.   The tone used was one of gentle awe, but the voice supporting it clearly used to giving commands and having them obeyed.

And there was fear, which was all too familiar to Georgiana Darcy, just then.

She introduced herself, not able to hold back the curtsy, to her own astonishment.

The young woman lifted her chin ever so slightly, and gave her own name.

“Susan Pevensie,” she said in a rushed whisper.  “Queen of Narnia.”

-

Wherever Narnia was, it was certainly not in England, though Georgiana might have guessed that from the start.  How she had arrived, she couldn’t have said.

Susan  - _Queen_ Susan -  asked her if there had been a wardrobe.

“A closet, maybe, or a pantry?”

“I was walking in the woods.”  Georgiana gestured to their surroundings.  “I thought these were the same woods, until they just…weren’t.”

Susan looked confused, but willing to take Georgiana at her word.  Georgiana could hardly believe that.  Shouldn’t she be the confused, questioning one?  Susan Pevensie could not be a queen, and this was no foreign land!

But as she looked at Susan’s profile as they walked, she knew it was true, that Susan would always say what was true, that she was unimpeachably honest.

That she might not tell the whole story, Georgiana would never really know.

-

“Cair Paravel.”

“I have never heard of it,” breathed Georgiana.  “But it is singularly breathtaking.”  Her eyes were wide, looking upon the home of the Queen.

-

Georgiana was brought into the castle amid awed whispers and open staring.  The courtiers, many of them Talking animals from all over Narnia, stared at Georgiana in turn.  Susan did not stop to explain; she was in a hurry to find King Peter.  She asked for him and Georgiana wondered silently how Susan had come to be married at so young at age.  Why, she was only just sixteen herself and had yet to be presented in London, and given everything it was unlikely to happen before Fitzwilliam himself was married and settled.

Her mind was in turmoil, trying to deny what she saw and accept it.  So she was not quite prepared for her introduction to another Queen.

“But you must call me Lucy,” she said in a kind, fervent sort of tone.  She pressed Georgiana’s hands and looked up, face shining.  “We have seen no one from our world in so very long.  We are sisters already, you see, Daughters of Eve.”

“Lu, don’t frighten her,” said Susan, nervous.

“What is frightening about who we are, Susan?  Aslan would call her that.”

“Yes, but…”

“ _Susan_.”

The sisters bickered on, gently, one insisting, the other backing away.

Georgiana broke in.  “Aslan?”

She said the name with reverence, and Susan and Lucy turned at the same time, astonished to see the look on Georgiana’s face.

They knew it well, having seen it on each other’s faces not so very long ago.

-

Susan’s new companion was the talk of the court.  She spoke the same language as the Queen, but had a more formal tone.  Her fashions were different, her dresses cut in a way no Narnian had ever seen, even in books, though there were a couple of the Talking trees that whispered how they thought they recognized it from long ago. 

She could ride, but not shoot, saying often how the country sports were left to the men where she came from.  Susan on hearing this made a mental correction.  It was when Georgiana came from that was the real difference.

They were all Narnians now, after all.

-

She rode with Lucy to Beruna and Beaversdam, and once the Queens took her on an extended visit to Archenland.  Georgiana caught the eye of an older Archenland duke; he was well-liked and every young woman in the kingdom spoke of his fine eyes, but he was said to be courting no one at all.

“It would be a good match,” Susan said.

But Georgiana’s heart was “engaged elsewhere,” as Lucy said in the formal refusal of the duke’s suit. 

On the return trip, she confided in Susan about George Wickham.

“Do you love him?”

Georgiana sighed.  “Whether I did, I do not know, but certainly not now.”

“So why refuse the duke?”

Georgiana looked up at the night sky, and Susan watched her face.

-

They sat in Susan’s solar, sewing together in the cheerful sunshine.  Narnia was enjoying a stretch of peace.  Kings Peter and Edmund were out on a hunt, Lucy on a visit to her friend Tumnus. 

“Do you ever wish you could go back?”  Georgiana thought of Pemberley often, of her pianoforte, her brother, her cousin.  She missed the seasons of English life.

“Go back where?” Susan replied, distracted.

-

She had been there some time before she really began to talk about home.  Lambton’s charms, Pemberley’s beauty. 

She spoke of Fitzwilliam one time, on hearing a waltz that was almost familiar.

“He doesn’t dance, my brother.”

“No?” replied Edmund, who had asked her to take a turn with him this once.

“He is waiting to fall in love, but he has not realized it yet.”

“And you?  Are you waiting to fall in love?”

A leading question, and Georgiana was startled, blushed.  Edmund laughed.

“Don’t worry.  I’m not asking for me.”

He spun her around so that she might see how the Queen watched them together.

Georgiana’s attention was diverted.  She did not see Susan, nor her dancing partner.  She hardly heard Edmund’s gentle japes.

But she heard the voice of a Lion.

-

“Tell me about Aslan.”

 _Sacrifice, authority, magnificence_.

_Regal, not at all tame._

But Susan’s reply was only,“There are no words.”

She took Georgiana’s hand and tried to say something else altogether, and found no words for that, either.

-

Lucy noticed.  Lucy always noticed.

-

But Georgiana could not stay.

She woke one morning, a year, maybe a little more after she’d gone for a walk in the woods at Pemberley.  And she felt a sudden need to be home.

She’d dreamt of Fitzwilliam.  He was looking for her, all over London, despairing of seeing her ever again.  She had the strongest impression that if she stayed here, he would never recover.

_You are not done.  Your business is not here._

Susan would wonder.  She would worry.

But she would also understand.

-

Susan found her in the woods.

“Where are you going?”

Georgiana turned, miserable and elated all at once.  “I cannot stay.  I am no Queen of Narnia, like you.  My duties are elsewhere.  My life is elsewhere.”

Susan nodded, tears threatening.  “I know.  Sometimes I feel....”

Georgiana came over, put her hand on Susan’s face.  Susan closed her eyes. 

“It is not your time yet.”

She turned and walked away.

When Susan opened her eyes, Georgiana was gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Shakespeare's Sonnet XXV.
> 
> http://www.shakespeares-sonnets.com/sonnet/25


End file.
